Page 57 of Wild Justice

“I admire your cool demeanor. Most people want to ferret out any possible secret that I might have. They simply must have every awful detail, or they won’t be able to sleep or eat.”

That sounded like hell.

“What do you do when they’re like that?”

“I give them what they think they want.”

“Which is?”

“All the details. Every grisly one. When their face turns green, and they look like they might puke, I know I’ve done my job well.”

“My mom always said to be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”

“Your mom sounds like a wise woman.”

“She is. Are you close to your parents?”

Kai immediately wished he hadn’t asked that question. He’d thought it might be a safe conversational route, but he’d miscalculated.

“They blame themselves for what happened to me, even though I tell them every time I see them that it wasn’t their fault. It was a family friend that they trusted who kidnapped me. It’s hard to be truly close with them when they’ve put up that wall of emotion.”

“Damn, I’m truly sorry,” Kai apologized. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”

“It’s not so much sore as sad. I know they love me more than anything, but since it happened, I think they’ve kept a certain distance. I think they’re afraid to love me too much in case they lose me again.”

“I guess they could have gone one of two ways,” Henry continued. “Either take a step back or become helicopter parents. Honestly, I think I got the best of the two options.”

“I’m sorry that it happened to you.”

“I see why Lulu trusts you. She has an instinct about people. She can be around them a short time, talk to them a bit, and she just knows in her gut whether they’re good people or bad. I don’t know how she does it, but she does. I think she gets it from her mom. Presley is amazing with people. Everyone loves her, just like Lulu. She draws others to her, and they want to be in her orbit. She’s like a magnet.”

“I hope that Lulu trusts me. I trust her, too.”

“She’s pretty fucking amazing, isn’t she?” Henry said with a wide smile. “She’s just a kickass human being. The best. She’s like a sister to me, though. I’m not trying to get into her pants or anything like that. We’re not that way.”

“I appreciate that. And I appreciate the friendship that you and Chase have extended to me.”

“You have to go with the flow with Lulu. Like I said, she attracts people into her life, so you need to get ready for that. There will always be friends around her. And I’ll always be there for her. No matter what. Even if she ends up hating my guts, I’ll be there for her. She deserves the best.”

“It sounds like she has a true friend in you.”

“I hope so.” Henry took a sip of his coffee, his gaze resting on Kai as if sizing him up a bit. “I’ll tell you more about what happened if you want me to.”

“I’m so sorry something like that happened to you,” Kai said earnestly. “How old were you?”

“Eight. My parents let me walk down to a friend’s house. Just four doors down. Not even to the end of the block. I didn’t make it there. A family friend was driving down the street and stopped to talk to me. I walked toward the car, and next thing I knew I was pulled in. It all happened so fast. I was confused at first because they’d always seemed so nice, but then I got scared because they wouldn’t take me home. They kept saying I was home.”

“You don’t have to talk about this,” Kai said. “It’s honestly none of my business. I don’t want you to have nightmares for a week because you told me about it.”

Henry smiled sadly and shook his head.

“I have nightmares all the time. Telling you about it won’t change that.”

“You still don’t have to tell me.”

“How about I just say that I escaped,” Henry finally replied, his gaze looking somewhere over Kai’s shoulder. “But I care too much about Lisa to throw all my emotional shit on her. She doesn’t deserve that in her life.”

“If she cares?—”

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